Why buzzy Silicon Valley startups are enforcing no-shoes policies: I hope they invest in air fresheners

Buzzy Silicon Valley tech startups have offered everything from ball pit slides to free nicotine pouches to keep workers happy – and now they’re telling staffers to leave their shoes at the door.No-shoes policies are on the rise across offices dominated by younger workers, where employers hope fuzzy socks and slippers on carpeted floors will foster a stress-free workplace.That’s even as many of them enforce a “996” culture, where staffers can work grueling hours from 9 a.m.

to 9 p.m.six days a week.“I’ve only worked at startups that have a no-shoes in office policy,” Ben Lang, an employee at start-up Cursor, wrote in a post on X in August.Lang runs his own website, noshoes.fun, that lists about 20 offices with shoes-off policies, including several AI firms like Replo and Composite.Spur CEO Sneha Sivakumar – who grew up in an Indian family in Singapore and often took her shoes off in homes and temples – said her AI firm offers Spur-branded slides for employees and guests to wear inside the Manhattan office.The policy “makes it feel like a second home” for her 10 employees and “disarms you in a positive way,” Sivakumar told the New York Times.Nick Bloom, a Stanford economist and work culture expert, told the Times that the shoes-off policy is partly “the pajama economy in action” as remote workers are forced back to the office – and bring some of their work-from-home tendencies with them.But it’s also consistent with Silicon Valley’s demanding work culture.

If you’re at work for 12 hours a day, “you might as well wear your slippers in the office as you’re not getting to wear them at home,” Bloom said.The trend is also largely dominated by young workers, and is unlikely to catch on in workplaces with a wider array of staffers, he said.“Young people have great feet,” he said.“Old people don’t.”Yuxin Zhu, co-founder of software startup Replo, told the San Francisco Standard he was aiming for a “homey, living-ro...